Russia hopes for further intensive dialogue with Malaysia - Medvedev

The Russian leader pointed to an increase in the trade turnover between the two countries

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HONOLULU (Hawaii), November 13 (Itar-Tass) — Russia hopes for maintaining an intensive political and economic dialogue with Malaysia, President Dmitry Medvedev said in his opening remarks to the talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak on the sidelines of the APEC summit.

“We are satisfied with what had been happening of late (in the relations between Russia and Malaysia) and we hope for maintaining a political and economic dialogue of rather high intensity in all areas,” he said.

The Russian leader pointed to an increase in the trade turnover between the two countries.

The Russian-Malaysian relations “registered the whole range of good events” as concerns trade relations and the implementation of several large projects, he said.

“There is the reason for synchronizing watches and the APEC summit is quite good forum for this,” Medvedev said.

Russia and Malaysia have long-standing relations of friendship and partnership. Last March former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad visited Moscow as a personal guest of the Russian president.

Malaysia is one of Russia’s largest trade partners among other countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. In 2010 the two countries’ trade turnover reached 1.711 billion dollars, while in January-August 2011 – 1.224 billion dollars.

In 2006 Malaysia’s national oil and gas corporation Petronas acquired a package of Rosneft’s shares worth 1.1 billion dollars. In 2007 Gazprom and Petronas signed a memorandum of cooperation.

Malaysia’s Rimbunan Hijau Group has been successfully implementing a large investment project in the forestry and timber processing industry in Russia’s Khabarovsk Territory. In 2007 Russia’s computer security company Kaspersky Lab won a tender for equipping Malaysia’s state schools with Internet security systems.

Russia’s Arter Group and Standard Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) agreed on the construction of a pilot bioethanol production plant in Malaysia.

The two countries boost relations in civil aviation. In June 2010 the United Aircraft Building Corporation and the Irkut Corporation signed a 3 billion dollar contract with Malaysia’s investment company Crecom Burj Resources on the purchase of 50 Russian medium-range airliners MS-21.

The space cooperation is high on the two countries’ agenda. In 2007 first Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was taken off to the International Space Station onboard the Soyuz-TMA spaceship. At present, Russia is ready to offer Malaysia a wide range of opportunities for using space equipment, including services of the Glonass global navigation satellite system.